


Round House

by Rubynye



Series: Fire And Ice [11]
Category: Star Trek XI
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/M, M/M, Mirror Universe, Other, Poker, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-11
Updated: 2011-07-11
Packaged: 2017-10-21 06:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk bets Leah in a poker game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Round House

To say that the poker game isn't going well for Kirk would be an understatement. Of course Leah could never damn well say that, here or anywhere else; she sits on an overstuffed little couch in the _Jiebia-wor_ 's Captain's quarters, her knees pressed together even more tightly than her hands, as Kirk plays cards with said Captain Staley and his XO. As Staley put it when his goons marched her and Kirk in here at phaserpoint, "My boy here's ready for his own command, and he'd love to get his hands on a buxom ship like the _'Prize_ , but we'll give you a fair chance to keep her. Titan Hold 'Em or Six Card Stud?"

Kirk barely even looked concerned as he corrected, "Her name is _Enterprise_ ," and reached for the deck. Leah bit her tongue, concentrating on the sharp throb instead of the four Security goons looming over her, instead of wondering if she'll ever see Joanna again, instead of letting herself notice the way the tall woman beside her keeps leering at her. Her guts writhe with nausea and her mouth's dry as, well, bones, but Kirk's distrustfully ignored the drink they brought him so she certainly won't ask for one. He licks his lips and plays intently, never looking away from his opponents and his cards; she swallows, her throat adhesively arid, her heart pounding against her sternum, and tries to hang on against the gaping abyss of worry.

Staley's triumphant bray of laughter breaks through her gloomy thoughts. "He's won, Kirk," he says, nodding towards his grinning XO, and Leah's heart plummets like a stone, right through her tightening chest. "Though since you've been such a good sport we'll drop you off anywhere you like after you give us the command codes. In a survival pod, even. We're pretty near Delta Vega..."

"One more hand," Kirk counters, head held high. "Double or nothing."

"You've got nothing to bet!" shouts the XO. "Nothing but your bones --" He stops on a choked off breath as Kirk grins, wide and toothy, and Leah shivers. She only thought she'd been terrified before.

"Exactly," Kirk says, turning to her, leading all eyes in the room to turn to her. "Gentlemen, Miss Security, have I properly introduced you to my doctor, Leah McCoy? She's a medical genius _and_ an incredible lay, a fine complement to any ship whose captain she serves. Yes, Bones," he adds, tilting his smile at her, which is how she realizes she's shaking her head and mouthing 'no'. "You are just that awesome."

"She is attractive," Staley says like she's a lump of dilithium or a looted artifact, stroking his chin as his oil-black eyes gleam at her. "But, you know, we don't have to put her in that pod with you. What do you think, Doctor Lady?"

"Oh, she'll never serve you," Kirk counters, as Leah squeezes her fists and grits her teeth and doesn't, doesn't scream. "You take her to bed and it'll be the last thing you ever do, though at least you'll go out with a bang." Snickers ripples through the room around her. "Not unless you win her from me and I tell her she's yours."

'This isn't our deal,' Leah wants to say. 'How could you?' she wants to scream. But she opens her mouth and promptly shuts it, unable to defy Kirk in public, not anymore. She sits immobile until the XO gets up and takes a step, reaching towards her; owing _him_ nothing, she can rear back into the couch and snarl, "Keep that hand off me if you want to keep it."

It's a complete and utter bluff, but he flinches back, pasting a wider smile over it as he sits back down. "Look but don't touch," Kirk admonishes, as if Leah's an object, as if she's not even sentient. "She's not yours, not yet. Now, gentlemen? Once more?"

Mumbling assent, they settle back into their seats. Leah can't watch Kirk gamble her life away, can't watch the XO leer sideways at her as he deals, can feel the Security goons's gazes like hot lasers. She shuts her eyes and grits her teeth and thinks of Joanna, a bright smiling spot in the dark whirl of her thoughts. Somehow she'll keep her daughter out of this. Somehow she'll see her safe.

Kirk says something, deadly soft, that Leah doesn't even hear. She jumps, shivering with reaction, and only belatedly realizes that Staley just bellowed, "The fuck, Kirk! How'd you do that?"

"Fair and square," he says, smugly satisfied, his cards laid before him. "Full house, Staley." Kirk stands and Leah watches him, dizzy with astonishment; she jerks upright and a heavy hand clamps onto her shoulder but she doesn't bother sparing its owner a glance, she knows it's the woman from Security and Kirk holds her gaze. "Thanks for the game," he says, stepping from the table, "but I'm taking my doctor back to my ship now."

"Like Hell you are," growls the XO, lunging to his feet, swinging his arm up, and Leah's heart thuds triple time. The contestants all agreed to set aside their phasers, but he's got his Agonizer in hand, he's within arm's reach of Kirk and she can't shout a warning before--

The Agonizer slams into Kirk's shoulder and he goes rigid, letting loose only a brief grunt. The XO's lips peel back from his broadening grin, but his forehead creases with confusion as Kirk stays silent under the Agonizer's onslaught. Leah's confused too, she has no idea how Kirk's still standing with that wracking pain suffusing his body, but he doesn't cry out and he doesn't collapse.

Instead, Kirk shudders once, his eyes still open, clear and bright. And then he moves, a bright streak in his hand as he spins, and the XO screams, the Agonizer falling from his grip, blood spouting behind it. "Thanks," Kirk says, almost drowned out as he catches it and jabs it against the XO's eye and the man screams again, convulsively folding over himself as he crashes to the floor.

Staley shoves himself up from his seat, and of course he had a phaser hidden, his dagger in his other hand as he lifts both weapons. Leah's heart is choking her, pounding in her throat as she watches Kirk dodge towards him, spinning his dagger in his hand as he lunges, blocking a dagger-strike with his blade and gripping Staley's phaser wrist as he headbutts him. Staley reels back bellowing and Kirk turns the phaser and shoots him, blue beam, the stun abruptly cutting off his noise. Staley hasn't even finished crumpling before Kirk shoots over his shoulder, stunning the XO still on the floor; another beam sizzles past Leah's ear and the hand on her shoulder spasms loose as the female Security goon topples face-forward onto the couch beside her.

Leah dives for the floor behind the table, closing her eyes against the injured man she just can't help. There's shouting over her head and shots zinging through the air, a whiff of ozone and three thumps in quick succession.

A booted foot lands beside her head. She debates opening her eyes.

"Bones," Kirk says, just a little winded, and Leah looks up. He's gleaming with sweat, grinning wide, a hectic light in his flame-blue eyes. He wipes his dagger on his thigh and sheathes it to offer her a hand, and when she reaches up his fingers curl around hers, holding steady as he hauls her up.

"Let's move." He's already dragging her towards the door, the only people on their feet in a room full of ionized air and stunned bodies. As they reach the door, which doesn't open, Kirk glances at the phaser he's holding and thumbs it to red; he shoots the door's upper and lower corners, and Leah pushes her fingers against it, prying it back into its slot until she can grip it and pull.

"Goddammit, open, you fucker," she hisses as she tugs its heavy alloy weight, and Kirk chuckles and reaches past her head to shove at it until they have it open enough to squeeze out.

That puts them in a corridor blank and blameless as any on the _Enterprise_ , and no one behind them has even stirred. Breathing hard, quivering to move, Leah's ready to run in any direction Kirk points, but he turns back, pushing his phaser hand through the gap, and she could just curse. They're out, they need to go, not to murder people lying helpless on the floor --

He only shoots once, then grunts, "Come on," loping off as she runs flat-out to keep up.

* ** * 

Forty-seven wracking, breathless minutes later, Kirk's as proud of himself as a cat with a juicy mouthful of mouse as he pilots their shuttle across the gap between ships, the _Enterprise_ within visual range and the _Jiebia-wor_ still quiescent behind them. Leah grips her armrests and stares up at the shining bulk of the _Enterprise_ looming nearer and nearer, and when she realizes she's actually happy to see it she has to laugh, low and cracked.

"What's so funny, Bones?" Kirk rumbles, and she glances over to see him pink-cheeked and cheerful and looking entirely unlike a man who just followed up an Agonizing with a firefight, a run, and re-commandeering a shuttle.

"Just never thought I'd be so glad to see that ship," Leah admits, and Kirk smiles so brightly, so valiantly, she has to force herself to look away from him, out towards black space again.

"I wasn't losing either of my girls," he tells her. "Besides, Brinahan couldn't run a freighter, and Staley knows it. They can find him a ship somewhere else, if he can hold onto it."

"Oh," Leah says before she can stop herself; she thought he'd shot one of them. He chuckles at her and shakes his head. "That would've been weak," he says, reading her thoughts off her face. "They can live knowing I didn't even have to kill them. Well, except for that touchy-feely Security chick with her paws all over you. I did say, look but don't touch."

Leah gasps, but what makes her blood run cold is that she isn't horrified, not really. Kirk got her out of there, and God only knows what Staley and his Brinahan would've done with her.

Kirk got her in there, too, but... he's the devil she knows.

So Leah bites her lip and doesn't say anything, and when Kirk says, "Thank you for being such an awesome distraction," as he reaches over to skim his fingertips down the curve of her cheek, she doesn't duck away from under his hand. Leah sits beside Kirk, who gambled with her and won, and doesn't move until the _Enterprise_ has swallowed up their shuttle and they're safe home, or as much of either as they can get.


End file.
